


cat's cradle (a dog teeth remix)

by toadsage



Category: Naruto
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Drug Abuse, Gen, Homophobic Language, Internalized Homophobia, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-21
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-02-17 21:26:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,192
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13085685
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/toadsage/pseuds/toadsage
Summary: Cat's cradle: 1. a string strategy game played with two players, where the goal is to make as many shapes as possible. 2. a variation on the same game, played alone. 3. something that is intricate, complicated. 4. Sasuke, with one chunk taken out of his face and an older scar on his arm, spiralling out of control.Sasuke drops the string. Sakura is only the start of the fall out.





	1. soldier's bed

**Author's Note:**

  * For [](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts).



> this is based on the loml's lesbiankage's fic dog teeth. it was great to work on that story with her and i thank her for letting me riff off her amazingness. please read that fic before you read this!!! 
> 
> be warned for some use of homophobic/transphobic slurs within the fic. the homophobia is casual but it is a major theme, so if that is a trigger i advise you to not read it

The school is of two opinions: either Sasuke deserved it (less common), or Sakura is a crazy bitch (way more common). Personally, Sasuke is of the second school of thought, but he won't disagree that he probably deserved it. (Like, he’d never say that out loud but in the comfort of his own brain, when Itachi is definitely not around, he would probably think privately that he deserved it maybe a little bit.)

The thing is, right, is that he knows that he shouldn’t have done it, for like, ethical reasons. He’s not dumb, his older sister’s a lesbian for fuck’s sake, but sometimes social conditioning overtakes one’s rational mind. Or something. That’s his excuse to himself, to stop feeling so guilty about it.

Also, the fucking bite mark on his face stops him from feeling too disappointed in himself or sorry for Sakura. It’s pretty hard to feel sorry for someone who took a chunk out of his face with her teeth and forced him to get 12 gross stitches across his right cheek. He’s gonna be ugly for the rest of his life, thanks to her.

And Sakura’s a freak, okay, she’s a weird, freaky, slug-obsessed, nerdy c-word. He doesn’t need her anyway, so it’s no regrets that he destroyed their relationship so definitively. It doesn’t matter that she was one of his few real friends, or even one of the few people who tolerated having him around. (And it’s cool, now, how with everything going around he’s driven away the few people who may have actually cared about him or something, but mostly he feels sick. So that’s okay too, or whatever.)

Sasuke’s only real friend is Suigetsu, since now he can’t talk to Naruto without feeling nauseous and he definitely can’t talk to anyone else from school since all they want to talk about is the fight and what Sasuke’s opinion of Sakura is, and Karin hates him for being a quote “raging lesbophobe and misogynist and I don’t even know what I saw in you you disgusting dickhead and don’t you ever talk to me again anyway, you’re lucky Itachi’s your sister or I’d kick your homophobic ass” unquote and Juugo listens to her more often than not now they’re in college and Sasuke isn’t. Suigetsu is kind of a dickhead and a homophobe anyway so he actually says Sasuke did the right thing and Sasuke really pukes that time but blames it on his pain medications. (Suigetsu slips him a couple Xanax and a blister pack of co-codamol and Sasuke’s grateful and hides it in the false lining of his backpack so Itachi doesn’t find it and give him that disappointed talk again.)

Sasuke turns his phone off instead, and leaves it at home. He wears his father’s Rolex to school because that’s the only watch in the house he can find, and ignores everyone in class and during lunch, even though all his (Naruto’s) friends want to talk to him. (But only about the fight.) He skulks around the bleachers during gym looking everywhere and nowhere, only because he knows Gai would kick his ass for trying to read A Clockwork Orange during class. He doesn’t really wanna try doing laps holding an ice-pack to his swollen face, so he gives Gai his best kicked-puppy look. (He’s too proud and too strong to look pitiable, so he doesn’t expect it to work as well as it does. Maybe Gai’s stupider than he thought, or just a bleeding heart, because he lets Sasuke sit as far away from Sakura as physically possible.)

He times it. It takes about half an hour according to his father’s ten-thousand dollar watch (a cheap replacement for an actual human parent) for Sasuke to get bored of watching the far corner of the gym and he meanders around the room for exactly 6 minutes 43 seconds before he ends up at the double doors which lead out of the gym. He stands there, mostly because he’s bored and wants to escape as soon as possible, but he immediately regrets the choice when Sakura passes by him.

He looks up (like a dumbass) and catches her eyes. He almost forgets to glare, doing it mostly because it’s expected of him and he doesn’t know what else to say. He feels too awful to try and apologise to her. He shifts how he’s holding the ice pack and that shifts her attention to the injuries on his face, but she doesn’t say anything either and he just stays quiet.

If she’s not gonna say anything, why should he, anyway? It’s not his fault she’s a dyke. He didn’t say anything but the truth. She doesn’t even look one ounce of sorry like she should be, for ruining his life and turning everyone he cares about against him.

Home comes too quickly and not quickly enough, and he gets to see his sister look at him with pity as she picks him up. He’s ‘grounded’ for getting in a fight, but she hasn’t seen the video yet or else he knows she’d be really disappointed with him. Then he’d be properly grounded, not just forced to be picked up from school in her black Maserati that doesn’t have a back seat so he has to sit next to her.

“Sasuke —“  
“Shut up.”  
“Sasuke, please, I want you to know it’s okay, I want you to be happy, okay?”

And it’s a continuation of the conversation he keeps trying to avoid because it makes his heart beat too fast and his back sweat and fingers twitch in a way that’s probably just symptoms of his unprescribed use of Valium. (Right? Right?)

“You’re not my fucking mom, okay? So shut the fuck up. I’m not talking about this.”  
“Sasuke, I get it, okay, of course it’s hard —“  
“You didn’t even give a shit about mom and dad, okay, you don’t get it. Even being a- a fucking tranny wasn’t enough to make them stop fawning over you whereas I’m a fuckup no matter what I do —“  
“Sasuke!”  
“You don’t get it, they fucking died and you’re not a replacement. You’ll never be. You only care because you have to and that’s the sick joke, right? Because they never cared even though they had to, and now they’d dead and now they’ll never care and now you finally get to know what it feels like. Having no one fucking care.”

Itachi’s fingers curl tighter around the wheel, her rings biting into her knuckles as they go paper-white, her ocean-blue nails digging into the expensive leather covering the steering wheel. She doesn’t say anything, just breathes in controlled measures he knows she learnt from the same therapist she tries to make him go to, and focuses on the road. Both of them sit in silence, only the sound of Sasuke’s heavy breathing and the quiet purr of the car to fill the space.

He looks out of the window at the side mirror, because at least it’s not the sea where Sasuke’s parents drowned waiting for assistance.

“You don’t mean it,” she says, and he knows she’s reading between the lines and lies of what he’s saying. (He doesn’t even know why he’s really saying it.) (Maybe he’s trying to push away everyone who cares about him so he can wallow in peace, so he can push himself into doing it.) (He’s a coward.)

“Sasuke. I know it hurts. It still hurts for me, too, okay? I miss them too. I’m trying to be your mom and your dad and your brother at the same time, and I’m not any of those, and it sucks, I know it sucks. But I love you, I want you to be happy, I want to help you. I can’t help you if you don’t let me in, I can’t help you when you’re lying to yourself.

“I just don’t know what I did wrong, to make you feel this way. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she says to him, but all the words are just a repetition of what she keeps saying to him and he’s heard it all before and he just rolls his eyes out the window where she can’t even see him anyway.

He wishes he could just stop talking.

She doesn’t try to stop him as he clomps up the stairs and locks himself in his room and lies down on his bed and finally, finally lets himself cry into his pillow. He cries because he has no friends and because he only has one arm and because his parents are dead and he fucked everything up, everything is his fault, and he cries because he doesn’t know what else to do and he’s not strong enough to try and fix anything. He cries because it’s an alternative to puking and he cries because he wishes he could just cry everything away.

An hour later, when he’s worn himself out and dehydrated, nothing has really changed. His laptop in his room is still untouched, but there isn’t any dust collecting because Itachi pays for a cleaner to go through his room every day and leave it spotless. He hasn’t touched it in a week, not since it betrayed him, not since Itachi found out and everything went to shit.

He picks up his backpack, takes out the co-codamol and dry-swallows three. He hasn’t even taken off his shoes. He ignores Itachi and doesn’t eat dinner for the fifth time this week, and falls asleep pressing his fingers so hard into his stitches they open up again.

The problem isn’t even his parents, or that Sakura and Naruto forgot it was the second anniversary of his parents drowning, or that Sakura just fucking wailed on a disabled kid. That’s not even the problem, even though it’s a really big and achingly nasty one. The problem, of course, is that Itachi found gay porn on his computer and now knows he’s gay and it was the reality check he really didn’t want at all.

The problem is he’s working himself up and spiralling out of control and won’t let anyone help him. The problem is Itachi is trying to force him to confront it before he’s ready to even acknowledge it himself. The problem is the sick feeling he gets whenever he thinks about trying to say those words out loud, to make it real. The problem is how he’s surrounded with blessedly open-minded friends who care about him, and he can’t even get out of his head enough to accept it for himself. The problem is he did the worst possible thing he could do to Sakura, all because he was terrified she was going to recognise it in him.

When he wakes up his mouth his dry and it’s five in the fucking morning. The sun’s already started to rise and Sasuke fucking hates Hawaii with virulence at times like this, he wishes he was born somewhere like New York or London where everything is grey and rainy and loud. A place where the weather outside doesn’t guilt you for being a depressed bastard.

He drags himself out of bed and pads into the kitchen, opening a bottle of whiskey that costs more than Naruto makes at his part time job in a month. (Sasuke would rather his parents poor and alive than rich and dead an administering love through a trust fund controlled by Itachi and his absentee uncle Obito on the mainland.)

He mixes the whiskey with the flat bottle of Pepsi (because Itachi has no taste) in the fridge and heats up some oil in a frying pan. He cooks himself a tomato and ham egg white omelette and eats it with no salt and one crack of pepper. He drinks the whiskey-and-Pepsi and then returns to his bedroom.

His phone is lying menacingly on his bedside table and call him a stereotypical millennial but he’s already gone three whole days without checking any social media. He wants to know if anyone noticed he was gone, or if anyone cared that he wasn't answering. He doesn’t care about his Twitter notifications blowing up, or even his Facebook mentions right now. None of this shit is going on his wall ever, that’s for sure.

He checks the messages from Naruto, though, the three days of him bugging Sasuke to respond.  
“lost my phone” he messages back, adding one of those dumb Facebook stickers in a moment of tipsy indulgence. It would appease Naruto at least to see it. He promises to go to the party Naruto invites him to, just to make Naruto happy. It wouldn’t hurt to drink someone else’s booze for once.

He texts Suigetsu back as well, making plans to sneak out from under Itachi’s nose and go smoke tonight, because at least if he hangs around Suigetsu he’d only see Suigetsu’s dumb college friends and they wouldn’t care about him at all. That’s good. Itachi wouldn’t even notice he was gone.

He goes back to the kitchen to clean everything and put it away, and then fills a flask with whiskey as well. Might as well have a good day at school. Sasuke pretends to back to sleep so that Itachi can wake him up, and he lingers in the shower so Itachi doesn’t force him to eat breakfast or else he’d be late for first period.

He holds his breath when Itachi changes the bandages on his face, praying to whatever god is out there that Itachi won’t notice the alcohol on his breath. There’s no comment from Itachi, and Sasuke is so relieved he almost resolves to try at school today in response to his ancestors looking down on him. (But he doesn’t, because that’d put him in a bad mood anyway.)

Sasuke loiters in the halls for as long as possible anyway, buying a bottle of coke from the vending machines and spiking it carefully in the bathrooms, before going to the nurse for a bag of ice. Might as well look as pitiable as possible to get the teachers on his side, and hopefully he can avoid a detention by complaining about the stitches in his face.

Surprisingly, the most excitement he gets is from Ino. He’d never given much thought to her besides relegating her to the position of one of his desperate admirers and then, later on, one of Sakura’s annoying friends. He’d never really factored in her personality at all. So he doesn’t expect her to come up to him in the halls, doesn’t expect her to even try to talk to him. He feels like they maybe have a class together or something, but he was so drunk this morning he didn’t even notice.

He’s mostly just trying his hardest to pretend he’s sober.

“What the fuck is wrong with you?” she asks him, and he tries his hardest not to laugh. He’s always been an oddly happy drunk, except when it goes all toes over tits.  
“Don’t talk to me,” he replies, trying his best to ignore her by looking into his locker and regain some sort of sobriety.  
“Sasuke Uchiha, you’ll listen when I speak to you,” she hisses back, crowding even closer into his space, ‘til he has to turn and face her.  
“What?”

She smells it, then, familiar to the stench of alcohol, and her face contorts into something ugly. “You’re drunk, aren’t you?” He barely notices the way she hits him, so focused he is on how she’d let herself look gruesome for once. Usually she was so put together: it looks like he’s not the only one breaking open and coming apart at the seams. He’s so drunk he doesn’t even feel it, he just hears the sound of skin against skin and then feels the warm burn grow across his cheek.

“So what?” he replies. He doesn’t notice how everyone’s looking at him, at least he tries not to.  
“You ruin everything, Sasuke Uchiha!”

She looks like she’s about to hit him again, but suddenly Shikamaru is there, holding her back. Don’t bother, he wants to say, let her hit me. I don’t care.  
“You don’t want to hit the cripple, Ino,” of course, he’s just a cripple to Shikamaru, to Ino, to everyone watching. He’s never been anything more than his appearance. “Just walk away. Come on, let’s go.”

God, he’s so fucking drunk, he doesn’t even notice he’s speaking until he says it. “That’s rich,” he’s nearly laughing, because everything about his life is so sad it’s hilarious, “Coming from the bitch who left her. I might’ve hit her, but at least I didn’t abandon her like some pussy bitch.”  
“Let’s go,” Shikamaru’s trying to tug her away, but she doesn’t go. She doesn’t want to go.  
“You did something worse! What kind of friend outs their friend? You have the gall to talk like you’ve ever cared about her –” Ino starts, but Sasuke isn’t even listening.  
“You left her bleeding in a parking lot,” he leans down and says, laughing his stinky booze-breath into her face. “You really think you can talk about friendship?”

“Step off,” Shikamaru says, pushing him away, and he’s startled enough that he half-stumbles backwards.  
“Don’t touch me,” he grits out, because everyone knows he hates being touched, he doesn’t want anyone’s hands on him anymore.

He slams his locker closed and slaps the phone out of someone filming him close enough in reach, and kicks the kid’s phone away into the crowd. Serves him fucking right for being a douche.

Ino’s shocked enough that Shikamaru manages to get her away, and his life stops being exciting once again. The rest of his day is a blur of sullen silences and ignoring people who care about him by hiding in the school’s library among the stacks of history books near the back and taking surreptitious sips from his flask. Even his ride home with Itachi is silent, Itachi finally having given up on trying to talk to him. Or maybe they did talk, and Sasuke just can’t remember it.

When Suigetsu picks him up, he’d been solidly tipsy all day, and a little faint from forgetting to eat. Suigetsu doesn’t even seem to notice, just telling him all about this new organic shit he’d scored that’s gonna rock your socks off. Sasuke can’t believe people still say that anymore, and he spends five minutes of the drive back to Suigetsu’s dorm trying to remember the last time someone said that to him.

Sasuke wakes up in his bed as his alarm goes off for school, not sure how he got back there or even what happened. His stomach hurts and his head feels all foggy weird. He groans, even when Itachi tries to gently wake him up and he snaps a few choice words at her and calls her a bitch before she pours a glass of water on his face.

“God, you are a bitch, I’m up, you blind mahu,” he grumbles, and Itachi glares at him. “Right, sorry, don’t say that word, got it. Let me fucking shower.”

“Sasuke?”  
“What?” He snaps, turning back to her with his shirt half off and his boxers around his ankles.  
“Have you checked your phone yet this morning?”  
“Why? Did you send me more of those dumb skiing fails videos or something?”  
“No, uh – fuck. I think you should look at this…”

She walks over to him, showing him Karin’s instagram, and for a second he doesn’t get it. And then he wishes he hadn’t gotten it. It’s a fifteen second video of him half naked and making out with one of Suigetsu’s friends. A friend who is very obviously male.

“There are more,” Itachi scrolls down, but Sasuke looks away, gritting his teeth.  
“Are you trying to ground me? Is that what this is? Because you’re not my fucking mom,” he tries to start the old argument again, because it’s easier than facing what Itachi’s trying to say.  
“No, I’m not,” and of course Itachi’s too smart to fall for his bait, cutting right through to get to the meat of the issue, “Sasuke, you’ve got to stop punishing yourself for being gay! Look at you, you’re all fucked up for no reason! You know I’m not going to judge you, you know Naruto and Sakura aren’t going to judge you, so why are you so upset?”  
“Fuck you, Itachi. It was always so easy for you. Shut the fuck up! I’m not gay!”  
“Bi, then,”  
“I’m fucking straight! Okay, stop fucking saying that! I’m not a fucking queer so stop trying to read into this shit!”  
“Why are you so defensive about this, then? If you’re not a fucking queer then why do you care so much about Karin posting this video? It’s just a prank, right? You were drunk, who cares?”

Sasuke grits his teeth and tries not to cry, but he can’t help the tears leaking out anyway. He’s so fucking dumb, he’s fucked everything up irreparably now and he wishes he’d just keel over now so no one else would have to deal with his wretched self.

“Oh, Sasuke,” Itachi says, softer, and she hugs him and soothes him as he starts to sob. “It’s okay, it’s okay. You’re going to be okay, Sasuke. I’ve got you, okay, I’ve got you. It’s okay to be gay, you know, I’ll still love you, mom and dad would still love you, Uncle Obito will still love you. We just want you to be happy. It hurts us when you’re so sad, Sasuke.”

He chokes again, and Itachi guides him back to the bed and lays down with him. “I’m sorry, Sasuke. I’m sorry I wasn’t there better for you, so you wouldn’t feel like this.”  
“I just want to be normal, I don’t fucking – fucking want this drama, I just want to be fucking normal and it would be so easy and I don’t know want this!”  
“I know, Sasuke, I know. Trust me, I know.”  
“No you don’t – everything’s so easy for you!”  
“Nothing has been easy for me, Sasuke. I had to fight with mom and dad and everyone in school and this whole fucking island to be taken seriously. It’s still not easy. I just didn’t want you to see me struggle, Sasuke, because I love you. I didn’t want you to see all the bad parts of the world when there’s so much good, even with all those shitty people. I wanted you to be comfortable with whoever you are. I’m just sorry you don’t, I’m sorry I didn’t try harder.”

Sasuke cries harder until he falls asleep, and it’s only when he wakes up at four to the sound of his phone ringing from Naruto that he realises Itachi let him skip school. He makes a mental note to thank her and also to never mention that interaction ever.

“Sasuke! I’ve been trying to reach you all day! Are you okay? I saw Karin’s videos! I told her to take them the fuck down, and my moms are like, super mad at her because I totally told on her. It was such a bullshit move!”  
“What, Naruto?” Sasuke says, trying to sound as cool and unaffected as possible, like he couldn’t possibly care.  
“I’m really, really sorry, Sasuke, I can’t believe she’d do that! It was so uncool!”  
“It’s fine, Naruto. Don’t worry your stupid little head about it. If you think too hard about it your little brain might explode.”  
“It’s not fine, she outed you, Sasuke. That’s so fucking awful! Online! To everyone!”  
“It was just a fucking joke, Naruto. Her caption was misleading, but whatever. I only made out with him as a prank. I’m comfortable enough in my sexuality to kiss a man or whatever.”

Naruto huffs over the phone and goes on a tangent about how it’s rude to treat gayness like it’s a joke or whatever, and that it’s homophobic or biphobic or whatever but Sasuke just tunes him out, thankful again to his ancestors for making Naruto dumb enough to buy it. Naruto also has a big enough mouth that he’ll correct everyone loudly that it was just a joke and Sasuke’s still into pussy, ladies, so don’t fucking worry.

“Anyway, are you coming to the party tonight? It’s so bullshit that you skipped without telling me, I was looking again for you at lunch but couldn’t find you! So you better make it up to me by coming to this party, okay! We didn’t get to hang out barely at all this week!”  
“Fine, if it’ll get you to stop irritating me, I’ll come to your stupid party.”  
“Awesome! Actually, you know what, we’re meeting up after the game for dinner, why don’t you just meet us there? Then I can drive you and you don’t need to worry about your car. I can even ask my moms if you can stay over tonight!”  
“If I agree you owe me, dumbass.”  
“Fine, I’ll owe you. But I better see you there!”  
“Whatever.”

Sasuke spends an hour cleaning himself up until he looks presentable enough to go to the party. He skates down to the parking lot where he said he’d meet Naruto, knowing he can just stash his board in Naruto’s trunk and it’s easier than trying to navigate the stupid bus system.

Naruto’s standing against his orange truck with his broken arm like a trophy, people still trying to sign it on the few strips of blank space with the neon sharpies that Naruto keeps in his glovebox. He’s holding court, and all his peons fucking love him and it hits Sasuke with a sharp pang of jealousy when he sees Naruto so fucking happy. Why does Naruto even care about him anyway?

He skates up right to Naruto, ignoring everyone around him.  
“Hey.”  
“Sasuke! You actually came! I didn’t think you would since you’re like, in one of those moods but I’m glad you did! Oh man, my moms said you can like, stay over tonight! This is gonna be an awesome fucking weekend!”

Neji and Lee are here already, and Sasuke knows at least he won’t get into too much shit by standing beside them and Naruto. Better to be with people he knows won’t hurt him, unlike Sai who hates his guts as long as they’re still in Sasuke’s body. Sasuke fucking hates this diner and their shitty food where everything’s made with fucking onions, but it’s not like Naruto and his friends (save for Neji) can really afford anything else.

“Excuse me,” he says, laying it on thick because when he bitches it’s in the nicest way possible, “Do you serve anything without onions?”  
He knows there isn’t, because he’s been here so many times, but he’s always pissed when the waitress answers with Salad. He’s been here enough times you’d think they’d make him a burger or something specially. He’d actually give a sizeable tip just for that.  
“That’s fine,” he grits out, focusing back on his palm, just for something to do.

Sakura fucking rubs it in for him, gaining the waitress’s sympathy so easily, a feat that even Sasuke can’t achieve with stitches in his face and being a child amputee. He’s bitter about it, and his fist clenches under the table so no one can see how his nails dig into his hand.

Sasuke sits sullenly between Naruto and Neji, sipping his extra large chocolate milkshake mainly to spite Naruto, who knows Sasuke’s mildly lactose intolerant and is always trying to get Sasuke to try almond milk! It’s delicious! (It’s disgusting and Sasuke would rather bite his own face than try it.) He ignores the conversation, mainly because he’s bitter, but also because he doesn’t really care about it when all they’re talking about sports and other dumb jock shit. He’d prefer them to start discussing the New Deal or AP Calc, something that he actually understood, rather than what was going on in that game Naruto just watched.

He’s only broken out of his daydream when Sakura slides her fries over to him, her words explaining herself washing over him.  
“Thanks,” he says softly, slowly starting to pick at them. He already finished his salad, he hasn’t eaten since yesterday, and he’s hungry. He promised Itachi last year that he’d stop wasting away, and begrudgingly, he starts to eat.

Sakura’s kindness, when he knows she still resents him for a lot of things, in the face of a group of people who would let him kill himself because it would be easier than trying to stop him, is a hard stone to swallow.

He leaves two hundred dollars on the table when they’re all done, paying for everyone’s food and the tip without even thinking about it. The money means nothing to him, and it’s not a kindness if he doesn’t care for anyone.

He takes the joint out of his backpack along with his lighter, and he’s not listening to any of the conversation because he’s too busy lighting the joint with one hand and taking a hit. He’s kind enough to offer Naruto a go, the only person in the group he’d want to share anything with. Naruto always turns it down, which secretly makes Sasuke happy, because he couldn’t live knowing he’d been the one to corrupt his best friend.

“Aw man, you know I can’t, Gai would kick my ass,” and Sasuke knows because that’s half the reason he doesn’t do sports. (Also because he can’t fucking run to save his life and their school isn’t big enough to have an adapted sport program.)

“Yeah, yeah, I know.”  
“You know who can, though? Kiba. You should offer it to him.”

Sasuke’s blood runs cold and he clenches his jaw, trying to act like the bottom of his stomach didn’t just fall out of his fucking body. Naruto shouldn’t know that, he shouldn’t say that, why the fuck is he saying that? He takes another hit because at least then he can blame the burn of his traitorous eyes on the smoke, and then Tenten’s in his face.

“Uchiha!” she snaps, and Naruto and Neji peel away from him, leaving him alone with an angry lesbo who wants his guts because her new fuckbuddy thinks Sasuke’s less than a standup guy.  
“What?” he drawls, trying to keep his cool even when his fingernails are digging into his palm again and he’s itching to run away.  
“Some of us don’t want to go home smelling like smoke, thank you very much! Go smoke it somewhere else where you can disappoint mommy and daddy by yourself! Or better yet, with those college frat boys you’re so fond of.”

He grits his teeth and takes another, exaggerated hit, blowing the smoke out in her face just to piss her off. “Mommy and daddy died in a plane crash two years ago, Tenten. Surely you know, or are you just too illiterate to read the news?”  
“Oh, boo hoo hoo, Sasuke. You act like having a sob story makes you entitled to being a total dick to everyone around you. Guess what? One day everyone will get sick of you whining to yourself, and then you’ll be fucking sorry.”  
“Oh, sorry Tenten, you’re right, everything’s so fucking easy for me with one fucking arm!”

“Yeah, you’re right. I don’t know shit about your mommy and daddy issues, would I?” She hisses back, stalking off, and it’s only belatedly that Sasuke remembers she’s an orphan too. He’s not sure if he should say anything, should run after her and apologise, what with him trying to be a new person and less of an asshole now, or something.

He doesn’t say anything. He lets Naruto take him to the party. He ignores everything.


	2. clock.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He loses the string under a cupboard. He tries to pick it up again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wrote this half a year ago, it's pretty crazy that it's finally getting posted. Hope you like it :D

The party’s typical of parties of this kind, and Sasuke’s already half stoned and half drunk and feeling the beat of this shitty 00’s throwback music playing. He fucking hates it. He follows Naruto in, but of course he looks at something else for a fucking  _ second  _ and Naruto’s lost into the crowd and Sasuke’s never gonna get to him now.    
  
He ends up in the kitchen again, next to a shirtless Kiba and suddenly there’s a bottle of Smirnoff gold (why’d anyone buy  _ this? _ ) in his hands and he’s chugging it down to the excitement of no one surrounding him. Kiba laughs and gives him a soft smile and Sasuke can’t help but melt a bit, because Kiba’s a hot dude (Sasuke has  _ eyes _ ) and he’s a pretty good crush because he’s fucking straight. (And so is Sasuke, definitely.)

 

There’s jell-o shots and suddenly Sasuke’s licking them off Kiba’s chest with a grin, and he’s fucking ugly with his dumb asian flush and he’s so fucking drunk so he takes a joint out of his pocket and holds it up to show the four others in the room. Someone cheers and another person snatches it from his fingers and lights it. Sasuke doesn’t even care, because it takes the attention off of him and onto something shinier. 

 

Sasuke tries not to jump away from Kiba too conspicuously and scramble to velcro his shirt back together. 

 

Sasuke comes back to and he hears someone call him a  _ fag  _ and he’s not sure what he’s just done, a whole chunk of time just missing from his memory. He can’t concentrate well enough to read his watch, the second hand moving and wiggling around too fast for him to focus on the numbers. And oh god, he’s so so fucking drunk. 

 

He just  _ runs,  _ and everyone else follows him, they follow and watch and laugh as he falls to his knees at the toilet bowl vomits everything out until he’s empty, an empty shell of a person half-dead already.

 

He’s embarrassed, mainly because he’s just puked his guts out and people were fucking  _ filming  _ it. He doesn’t even understand what they’d possibly get out of filling their memory with videos of his upchuck, but he spotted at least four cameras out when he managed to get a look. 

 

They only leave when Sakura comes, her reputation enough to scare off the whispers of  _ fag  _ from being so close to him. His skin is crawling, but he hates to think he’s showing her weakness. He doesn’t understand why she’d show him this kindness, he’d think she’d be fucking glad he had to go through the same thing she did. (Except she wasn’t set up. He was.) 

 

He tries to stop crying, but his stupid dumb traitor eyes keep watering up without his consent, and he fucking hates it. He can see it in her eyes now, and it pisses him off that she knows how weak he is. He hopes that maybe if he closes his eyes she won’t notice and he can go back to being miserable and alone and pissed off that Naruto abandoned him to the wolves. 

 

She clears her throat and he opens his eyes out of habit, and they make the most uncomfortable eye contact in the history of the world. Neither of them want to be here, but Sakura won’t get the hint to leave. 

“What do you want?”

“Nothing.” That’s a total lie, everyone wants something, “Do you need… help?”

“I don’t want  _ your _ help.”

 

He pulls himself off the floor, groaning as his head spins, and tries to spit out the remainder of the puke taste in his mouth into the toilet bowl. It doesn’t really help at all, and he wonders why he wasted precious saliva on that. He gets onto his feet, his knees and feet feeling weak, and pulls himself along the counter to the sink. 

 

“You can leave,” he offers, wondering if she’s like some kind of reverse vampire. He turns the faucet on, running his hand under the water and splashing it on his face, trying to sober himself up. 

 

“I’m fine here,” she replies, and he ignores her, drinking water from his cupped hand before taking the Xanax he was keeping in his shirt pocket. 

 

He turns back around to her, looking her up and down, and then he sighs. 

“You’re fucked up,” she tells him, like he didn’t already fucking know. Of course he’s fucked up. He’s fucked up because his mom died in hospital two years ago today, because he lost his arm in a  _ tragic accident _ , because his best friend’s cousin outed him online, because everyone he knows now thinks he’s a fag and that’s another black mark against him. It’s the third strike, now he’s out. 

 

“Is there anyone you want me to call to come pick you up?” 

“No, I’ll just call ‘Tachi…” 

 

It’s easier that way, to fall back behind Uchiha lines and freeze everyone out. Does he really even need anyone else?

 

“Okay,” she says and moves, and Sasuke tenses like she’s about to go for his other cheekbone. “Come on. I’m going to take you downstairs, and we’ll find Kiba, and you can stay there until Itachi gets there…” 

 

And he’s suddenly so tired that he doesn’t have the energy anymore to argue, so he just follows her downstairs like the sullen child he is. They look around until they find Kiba, who’s predictably playing with a dog in the garden. He always manages to find the mutts, no matter where on the island he happens to be. 

 

“Sakura!” Kiba shouts, grinning like a fool. (A hot fool, but still a fool. Sasuke knows Sakura well enough to know she wouldn’t have forgiven him so easily for posting the video in the first place.) “And _ Sasuke _ .” 

 

He ignores them in favor of texting Itachi, focusing hard so he doesn’t fuck up the spelling or the address, so Itachi maybe perhaps will believe he’s sober. He doesn’t catch what they say, only sits where Kiba gestures and takes a look at the dog Kiba’s got. 

 

He doesn’t even notice Sakura leave.

 

That kind of makes him feel sad, and he ruminates on it as he pets the dog Kiba found softly. 

 

“Penny for your thoughts?” Kiba asks, and Sasuke looks up at him. 

“Uh, I guess I’m just – I don’t know. You ever get the feeling you should tell someone something but you don’t know how to say it? And you’re way too…” proud, self absorbed, stupid, “nervous to say it? So you don’t say anything, and it hurts both of you because it’s something that needs to be said.”

“Yeah, I know what that’s like. Maybe you should just, like, say it? Fuck what everyone thinks, you know? Be a man about it.”

 

Sasuke doesn’t reply, and Kiba bumps his shoulder against Sasuke’s stump. Sasuke keeps patting the dog.

 

“Y’know, Sasuke, I –”

 

Sasuke doesn’t hear the rest of what Kiba’s about to say, because Sakura’s there with Itachi and Sasuke knows it’s now or never to tell her. 

 

“Sakura!” He shouts, standing and stumbling over to her. He barely notices Itachi beside her, so focused on what he’s about to say. “I’m fucking sorry, okay? I’m fucking –” 

“Sasuke…” she says, glaring at him like she doesn’t even want to look at him and he does feel sorry, sorry that he’d fucked their friendship up right when she’d started to trust him. 

“Just, I hav’to say this okay, I’m sorry I said that, I didn’t mean it, I just, I was jealous…” he cuts out when he realises people are watching, probably filming too, and this isn’t what he wants to say on camera, “I was jealous you because I, I’m like you, Sakura.”

 

She snorts, rolling her eyes at him and he flinches. That was mean, she  _ knows _ it freaks him out but clearly she doesn’t care. “I don’t want to talk about this right now. I just want you to leave me alone.”

 

“Sasuke,” he can hear Itachi say, but he’s so fixated on Sakura, he doesn’t hear her.

“I need to talk to you! _ ”  _ he protests, reaching out to grab her hand as she turns to walk away. She wrenches her wrist out of his grasp and he stumbles backwards, like he was burnt, like he was in danger of losing his other arm. 

“And I don’t want to talk! Don’t you fucking touch me again!” 

 

She storms off and Sasuke puts his head in his hand and Kiba walks up behind him, still holding the dog. 

“That could have gone better.”

“Yeah. It really could have.”

 

“Sasuke,” Itachi says, and he finally looks at her, finally listens to her even though she’s been talking this whole time. She looks really tired, moreso than normal, her deep eyebags a purple blue colour under her eyes. “Can we go home?” She’s asking him, finally asking.

“Yeah, yeah.” Sasuke ignores Kiba. He doesn’t even notice him. He leaves.

 

They’re silent in the car, not talking about what happened back at the party until she pulls into the garage of their house that’s four sizes too large for who they are. 

“Sasuke, I talked to Sakura.”

“I saw.”

“I think… I am not doing a very good job of taking care of you, Sasuke. I can’t watch you all the time to make sure you’re okay. You need help, Sasuke, help that I can’t give you on my own.”

 

Sasuke’s breath catches in his throat, and he only  _ just  _ manages to hold back the dry sob threatening to come out. “What are you saying, Itachi?”

“I think… what would be best for you is to go to rehab, Sasuke. There they can get you proper psychiatric help and stop you from abusing –”

 

“ _ No! _ ” Sasuke shouts at him, his back pressed against the door as he struggles to get out. Suddenly he feels suffocated, like the tiny space of the car is closing in on him. 

“Sasuke, please, it won’t be like –”

“How the  _ fuck  _ would you know? They fucking  _ lie  _ to you, just like they lied to Mom and Dad!” 

“Sasuke, I can’t take care of you like this –”

“No. No. I’m not going, you can’t make me. I’m fucking eighteen. I’ll run away. I’ll fucking kill myself, Itachi, before I go back to  _ that place. _ ”

“Sasuke –”

“You don’t know what they  _ did  _ to me there! You fucking don’t! You can’t make me!”

 

He finally gets the door open and flies out, legs still shaky and his mind whirling. Itachi shouts after him but he doesn’t respond, doesn’t look back, just runs away as far as he could before he has to stop and catch his breath. (Itachi could have followed, but she didn’t. He doesn’t know why.)

 

When he starts to slow down, he formulates a plan. He heads to Naruto’s house to grab his backpack and skateboard from him, and then he can take enough money out of his account to get a flight off this island and back to the mainland, hopefully. There it’d be pretty fucking hard to find him, and he’d be free. The only snag in this plan is getting past Naruto. 

 

He half-jogs the rest of the way to Naruto’s house, banging on the door with his fist as soon as he gets there. He keeps banging against the door until Naruto finally opens it, and Sasuke’s relieved. 

 

“Naruto, can I have my backpack I left in your car? I need it,” he says, hand holding Naruto’s shoulder with a crazed ferocity.    
“Uh, can you come in, Sasuke? You look like you need to calm down.”

“I can’t! I have to go, okay? I just need it, please,” Sasuke’s nearly begging, and Naruto tugs Sasuke over the doorstep and into the house. 

“Look, Sasuke, whatever it is, maybe you can explain it… before I give you the bag. I heard about what happened at the party and I’m worried about you, dude. You look like you’re – well, is this about drugs?”

 

The question throws Sasuke off balance, because it wasn’t really what he was expecting it. What does Naruto think? That Sasuke’s an addict or something? Maybe that’s why Itachi thinks he needs rehab. Maybe they’re  _ colluding.  _ That’s kind of a terrifying thought, that his best friend has betrayed his trust in order to, what? Get brownie points with his older sister? 

 

“No!” he nearly shouts, “It’s not about  _ drugs!  _ It’s about Itachi trying to send me back to  _ Orochimaru,  _ Naruto! You don’t know what he fucking  _ did  _ to me, I can’t go back there, I’d rather fucking  _ kill myself.  _ I’ve got to run away because if she sends me back to  _ him  _ or I’ll literally fucking die, Naruto!”

 

Sasuke can see the way Naruto flinches at the mention of Orochimaru’s name, and he’s not really sure how Naruto even knows about him. Well, at least until the brain fog clears and he realises Karin, Minato, and Kushina are sitting in the living room, watching him in a stunned silence.  _ Fuck. _ They stare at him and he stares back, no one sure what to say after his outburst. He’s the stupidest smart person ever, smart in all the ways it doesn’t matter and stupid where it really counts. 

 

Naruto breaks the silence, and Sasuke’s grateful for it. “Uh, you can stay here for tonight, maybe?”

 

Minato’s the first to respond, and she gets up and nods and starts to walk over to Sasuke but stops in her tracks when she sees him flinch. She opens her mouth to speak, probably to say something sickeningly mother-y that’ll make Sasuke want to vomit his guts all over the floor, but instead Karin (of all people) interrupts them. 

 

“He’s dead, Sasuke. We saw it.”

“How do  _ you  _ know, you stupid bitch! Just because we saw  _ something  _ doesn’t mean he really died! He’s probably still got a fucking medical license because no one gave a rat’s ass about us –” 

“He’s  _ dead,  _ Sasuke, come  _ on,  _ man.”

“Sure, because it’s so fucking  _ easy  _ to just get over it! How would you know?  _ I  _ was his favourite, not you!” 

“Fuck you, Sasuke. He’s fucking dead, and it’s your own fault you won’t can’t get over it.”

 

Sasuke quietens, goes rigid with anger and Karin doesn’t even realise what she’s done wrong. “You gained a family out of that fire, Karin. You have everything I’ve ever wanted: good moms, an amazing brother,  _ two arms.  _ I lost  _ everything  _ and you will never,  _ never  _ know what it is like to be like me. I still remember how painful it was for my arm to literally burn off, the flesh  _ literally melted.  _ You know what, it wasn’t even the most painful thing I’ve lived through.” He waves his stump around to explain, and it’s only then he realises how fucked up he must look. 

 

He’s covered in puke and mud and dog hairs, waving his freaking arm around like a madman and his hair is  _ all  _ fucked. Minato licks her lips, and Kushina looks like she’s either going to cry or hit something. Karin’s just frozen, mainly because she knows better than anyone else how  _ little  _ Sasuke likes talking and how much he hates people knowing about himself. 

 

“How about you take a shower, Sasuke, sweetie. Naruto can lend you some clothes. Have you had anything to eat today? I’ll find some leftovers without onions for you, okay?” Minato goes into Mom mode, in a way that he doesn’t remember his own mother ever acting. He’s grateful for the excuse to leave, and he climbs up the stairs, already knowing the way. Years of staying over at this house means he’s intimately aware of where everything is, and it always feels more like home than his carcass of a mansion. 

 

He takes a shower, spending as much time as possible in the bathroom, and helping himself to all of Naruto’s bath things. They aren’t as good for his hair and body as Sasuke’s own are (Itachi’s a picky bitch about hair and skincare), but instead of smelling like expensive perfume he now smells like Naruto’s own blend of ‘passion mango’. It reminds him of the childhood sleepovers they used to have, and it cheers him up. It feels like he’d wasted an  _ eternity  _ in the bathroom, but his watch tells him it’s only been twenty minutes. 

 

He washes his face once more, just for posterity, and slips on Naruto’s dressing gown which is two sizes too large around the shoulders and both  _ fluffy  _ and  _ orange.  _ (He likes it anyway, because he likes anything associated with Naruto. It’s comforting.) Naruto’s waiting for him outside the bathroom, surprisingly patient, and with the fakest  _ everything’s okay  _ smile Sasuke’s seen since the the funeral. 

 

“It’s been two years,” Sasuke leads with, because he knows if he doesn’t start the conversation, Naruto will. At least now he gets to on his own terms. 

“Really?” Naruto asks, and Sasuke’s never told him when his parents actually died, and Naruto’s respectful enough to not go digging around for dates. Sasuke’s pretty secretive in that regard, at least, but mostly because it wasn’t even something he’d thought he’d need to say. 

“Yeah. They died… coming to get me from the hospital, after the fire… you know?” 

 

Naruto just hugs him, because Naruto’s the only person in the whole world he’ll let hug him, and it’s good enough for him. “I’m sorry.” Naruto says, and Sasuke believes he really is. “Will you let my mom feed you? She’s kind of freaking out, dude.” Minato’s always been a worrier, although she’s careful enough around him that Kushina always lets her take the lead on Sasuke-related situations. They both treat him like a flighty bird with a broken wing, and he’d be offended if it wasn’t true. 

“No onions?”

“No a single fucking trace, bro.” 

Sasuke cracks a smile, half-unwillingly, but it makes Naruto grin and that makes up for all of it. 

 

The next morning, he has a hangover, he’s awake at – watch says five in the morning, and Naruto’s shaking him awake. He groans, batting Naruto out of his face and rubbing his eyes open. “Naruto. It’s five in the fucking morning. I’m hungover, let me sleep or I’m gonna fucking kill myself, dude.” He feels Naruto tense where he’s sitting on Sasuke’s stomach, and he rubs his face again, too fucking hungover to deal with this. “That was a joke. Get off me, dumbass, so I can get up.” 

 

Naruto grins and laughs at him, scrambling up and passing Sasuke some of his clothes to wear. “Get dressed, dude, we’re meant to be meeting Sakura in like, fifteen minutes.” 

Sasuke’s too fucking skinny, his weird asian genes making him look like he’s starving himself even when he  _ isn’t,  _ and that means that Naruto’s pants always have to be cinched together as tight as his belt allows it. (The belt he punched two extra holes into.) The shorts balloon out above his knees like he’s straight out of Kingdom hearts, but no matter how he pulls them down they still make his legs look like little twigs. It’s not fair that Naruto gets to build up all this natural bulk and widen out like a  _ man,  _ and Sasuke’s body makes him look like a stretched out ten year old. Naruto leans in to help him button up the shirt, and Sasuke asks, “You sure this is a good idea? Does she know I’m gonna be there?” 

“Yeah,” Naruto laughs at Sasuke’s visible signs of relief, “Don’t worry, I’m not gonna parent-trap you guys. I, I told her about…  _ it,  _ y’know. I’m sorry, like, if you didn’t want me to, I don’t know, I just needed to –”

“Naruto. Chill. I know. I figured, when I told you. You have a big mouth.” 

“I promise I won’t tell anyone else, seriously Sasuke, you don’t have to worry…”

“I’m not worried. I trust you.” That gets Sasuke another bright grin, and Sasuke smiles tentatively back. It’s almost worth waking up this early. 

“Will you tell Itachi, Sasuke? Please?”

 

He sighs, and shrugs, “You’ll tell her if I don’t, won’t you?”

“There’s some advil and water downstairs,” Naruto says in answer, a truce, and Sasuke nearly tears out of the room. 

 

Naruto grabs his dogs while Sasuke chugs down a gallon of water, and they all pile into Naruto’s shitty car. It’s nothing like Itachi’s, nothing like the car Sasuke was promised he was going to get, before he lost his arm and decided not to bother with trying to get a license. Sasuke likes it better. 

 

He rifles through his bag while Naruto drives, surreptitiously taking out his lighter and a joint while Naruto focuses on driving. 

“Stale oreo?” he offers Naruto, who refuses, and Sasuke munches on the birthday cake ones he bought a month ago. 

“Those are so fucking nasty, dude, fucking love yourself.” 

Sasuke elects not to voice the nasty self harm joke that’s at the tip of his tongue, and just continues munching instead. He’s got a joint in his cargo shorts, and that’s what matters. 

 

It’s not too far to get to the beach (being Hawaii and all), and Naruto’s dogs streak out of the car the second Naruto opens the door. Naruto just tosses his keys to Sasuke (who doesn’t even attempt to catch them) and chases down the dunes after them. It’s probably dangerous to drive barefoot, but Sasuke knows nothing about driving, so he couldn’t really tell Naruto off for it. 

 

It’s really hard to light a joint against the sea wind when he doesn’t have any way to shelter the flame. He tries his armpit, but he’s too worried about setting Naruto’s shirt on fire to really attempt it. Just when he’s making a real fool of himself, Sakura comes up to him, and he sighs. 

 

She doesn’t pull her punches, Sasuke learned a long time ago, and now isn’t the exception. “I heard Itachi wants to send you back to treatment.” 

“Yeah,” he says, because there’s not much else to say. It’s still hard to talk to her, the guilt and shame built up in his throat like a stone.    
“And I heard ...about  _ treatment.”  _

“... Yeah,” he chokes out, manages to try and sound cool, even though he knows what exactly she’s referring to. 

 

She cups her hands around the tip of his joint, and he smiles back at her, a little one, in thanks. He sucks a drag down, turning his head away from her as to not get any smoke in her face. He knows her, he knows that even when she’s up for a hit, it isn’t first thing in the morning, ever. He doesn’t bother offering. 

 

“It’s kind of fucked up.”

“Yeah,” he replies, because it’s  _ so  _ fucked up he can’t even get the words out without crying. He doesn’t want to cry in front of her, he doesn’t want to force her to be sympathetic when he  _ should  _ be still ready to gut him. He wants to gut himself, but doing it by proxy is good enough. 

 

“Are you gonna… tell her?” Sakura asks after a long pause, and Sasuke knows exactly what she’s asking. Sakura’s always been sympathetic to Itachi, even when Sasuke didn’t want her to be. It’s easier to talk about the aftermath than the effects, and Sasuke is relieved at the slight turn of conversation. 

“Sunshit McFuck over there says if I don’t, he will.”

“And… do you plan to still go into rehab? After everything, like, blows over with Itachi, are you still going to go get help?”

 

He doesn’t know, doesn’t want to think of himself as someone with a  _ problem,  _ doesn’t want to be the teenage addicts they see in anti-underage drinking PSAs. He’s never like, sucked dick for crack, he’s not an  _ addict.  _ It’s easier to just, just not answer the question. 

 

Naruto comes back before Sakura asks something else, and Sasuke’s so glad for the ease on Sakura’s attention, he nearly breaks his mask of stony silence.

“Hey you two,” Naruto says in his trademark airy voice, like nothing’s happened between the three of them. Sasuke closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see the look of disappointment Naruto’ll give him when he sees his joint. “I thought you told my moms you didn’t have anything on you.” 

“I don’t,” Sasuke says, and it’s not a complete lie. He didn’t have anything on him then, and he doesn’t have anything on him  _ now  _ except for the joint. It’s in his backpack, which isn’t  _ on him.  _ “Found it. It was on the beach, wasn’t it, Sakura?”

 

“Don’t say my name,” she whispers back, and Sasuke freezes up. For a moment he’d forgotten everything’s changed between them, and he’s caught between self-hatred and indignation. She talked to him  _ first,  _ fuck it. 

 

“I’m sorry,” Naruto says, and Sasuke leans into his shoulder, silently trying to convey that it wasn’t his fault. 

“Stop saying you’re fucking sorry,” Sakura snaps, and Sasuke nearly growls at her. 

“Don’t be fucking rude,” he spits back, automatically defending Naruto from her. He takes a drag, blowing the smoke in her direction just to spite her, because she’s being a bitch right now. 

 

They sit in a tense silence, watching the dogs run in circles and the waves lap the short in a comforting certainty. The sun rises to silence, and Sasuke just leans further into Naruto’s shoulder. 

 

“I’m sorry about Ino,” he says, because he still is pissed at her for making a scene in front of everyone. But he is sorry, genuinely.

 

He finishes smoking the joint down to the roach, trying to get every little bit of enjoyment out of it. It starts to burn his fingers, and Naruto takes it out of his fingers and buries it into the sand. Sasuke doesn’t even protest, mostly because he doesn’t want to piss Naruto off right now. So he bites his words off in his mouth, and focuses on where their hands are still touching. 

 

Sasuke thinks of all the times he’s scared Naruto like this, like when he said he was going to kill himself and Naruto pulled him out of his bed and wouldn’t leave him alone for  _ days.  _ He thinks of when he came back from treatment a broken boy, scared and fragile, and how Naruto was the only one who remembered him. He thinks of how when he came back from treatment, he’d found out that Naruto had written him hundreds of letters he’d never received. Naruto was the only one who ever thought of him.

 

“We’re back together now. I forgave her,” Sakura says, and he doesn’t know how he should feel about that. As Sakura’s friend, he doesn’t think he should be letting her forgive Ino so easily. 

“I know,” is what he says. He doesn’t deserve to have an opinion.

“You’re still a piece of shit.”

“I know,” he repeats, because he does. He doesn’t really deserve to have them as friends.

 

“Can we be nice to each other, please?” Naruto breaks the tension, giving Sasuke’s hand a pleading squeeze. He’s said this for years, though, Sakura and Sasuke’s relationship never having been the wholesome-apple-pie kind of friendship Naruto wants them to be. 

 

Sasuke breathes in. “Your hair looks like shit.” He likes it that way, he doesn’t say.

“Thanks, I like it. I like that shitty shirt of yours, too. Did your sister buy it for you?”

“Yeah, she did. It’s ugly, but I pull it off,” he poses slightly, flexing his arm without letting go of Naruto’s hand. 

“Guess so. It’d look worse on Naruto.” 

 

Sasuke smiles, but pretends it’s a yawn and lays back down on the sand. He looks up at the sky because it’s easier to focus on than his friends, and pretends he’s not still broken and cracked into tiny fragments. He’s just a sad, sad person. 

 

“That’s not what I meant, you two,” Naruto tells him off, and that makes Sasuke snort at him. Naruto’s clearly smoking something if he thinks Sakura and Sasuke are ever going to be as kind as he is.

 

“We’re gonna be okay,” Naruto says, his hand finding Sasuke’s and squeezing it. 

Sasuke laughs. It’s not funny. “You are, sure.”

“No. We  _ will  _ be, together, okay?” Naruto squeezes harder, til it hurts, then lets go. 

 

Sasuke gets it. 

 

“Yeah, Naruto’s right,” Sakura pipes up, and Sasuke’s heart softens again, “Best friends forever, right?”

“Yeah!” Naruto grins, and grabs her hand too. “Best friends, even when you do dumb shit, you guys. And no more life changing secrets, okay? From now on this is a no secret no judgement zone!” 

“Yeah. Alright.” 

 

A lot of the time Sasuke’s of the mindset that he’s a fuckup, that he’s never gonna make it. Naruto and Sakura give him this look, that despite all the pity they feel for him, they don’t care if he makes it. That’s good too.

 

Sakura smiles at him, she actually looks him properly in the eyes since this whole shitstorm started, and Sasuke can’t help but give her a small little smile back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> feel free to reach me on tumblr @toadsages


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